Blank Face turns away from the ambitious fusion of To Pimp a Butterfly**, instead doubling down on a smoked-out atmosphere that points the listener’s focus toward rapping. Tracks like “Groovy Tony/Eddie Kane,” which was produced in part by TDE producer and frequent Q collaborator, Tae Beast, signal a return to the collective’s house sound. The working affair was better than bullet holes in my shirt.” “But being real never once brought the groceries.” Then, in the span of a couple bars: “Hope was all that I needed/dreaming myself to work. “Guess I’m being a real n**** like I’m ‘pposed to be,” he raps on “Lord Have Mercy. His bitterness will be palpable, one moment in the next, pride shines through. Q’s verses are built from concrete details and raw emotion, and his flexibility is such that he’s able to channel two seemingly conflicting emotions into a single verse. We’re accustomed to seeing concept albums from TDE, but Blank Face strays from the polemic, reaching instead for portraiture. (Miguel is the only exception to the rule of polite guests: His smooth hook and Q’s sandpaper verses repel each other on the late-album misfire, “Overtime.”) Kanye West and Vince Staples, two of the biggest personalities in hip-hop, trade bars with Q without overshadowing him, and the songs on which they’re featured, “That Part” and “Ride Out,” are standouts that nonetheless fit seamlessly into the course of the record as a whole. Paak, rap’s scene stealer of the year to date, is compelling as ever on the album’s title track, but it’s Quincy who grounds the narrative, his spoken-word verses painting a past on Hoover Street and a future with the daughter he refers to as both a munchkin and a queen. But Q’s voice holds the center of nearly every track on Blank Face.Anderson. The new record is loaded with features, a warning sign of scattershot focus on most major label albums. With it comes a collection of catchy, urgent gangster rap songs that show the South Central native at his charismatic best, gallows humor and tough talk failing to obscure a humane core. Q’s unpredictable flow, as likely to morph into a bizarrely appealing sing-song melody as it is to shift to sneering double-time, has returned. He’s lost 30 pounds and with his second album for Interscope, Blank Face, he’s returned to the trajectory that had him looking like the yin to Kendrick’s yang. Two years later, Quincy Matthew Hanley says he’s no longer addicted. So while Oxymoron was received positively upon release, enthusiasm soon dwindled for the record and for the rapper once thought by many to be the slyer, less-earnest equal of his TDE labelmate Kendrick Lamar. Q’s enormous personality had been downsized, his sharp edges smoothed, his straight-talking iconoclasm receding into rote gangsterisms. Lean leads to bloat, and while Oxymoron featured plenty of memorable moments, it had too much empty material to fully capitalize on the promise of the rapper’s snarling sophomore album, Habits & Contradictions**. Listening to the album though, you suspected that Q may have been dabbling before the record was mixed. He told radio personality Angie Martinez that he’d managed to keep it at arms’-length while recording his major label debut, Oxymoron, but that as soon as the album was done, he’d had something of a relapse. In 2014, Schoolboy Q bluntly described his difficulty staying off lean, and what the drug had done to his art and personal life. ScHoolBoy Q – Blank Face LP Album (Zip Download) Out now, stream Schoolboy Q’s highly anticipated sophomore album “Blank Face.” It’s been a couple years since we last received a full length project from Schoolboy Q, but thankfully that streak ends here today.īlank Face LP is a collection of catchy, urgent gangsta rap songs that show the South Central native at his charismatic best, gallows humor and tough talk failing to obscure a humane core. ScHoolBoy Q – Blank Face LP Album (Zip Download) Out now, stream Schoolboy Q’s highly anticipated sophomore album “Blank Face.” It’s been a couple years since we last received a full length project from Schoolboy Q, but thankfully that streak ends here today. For ScHoolboy Q's latest music, news, and tour dates, check out his Zumic artist page. Blank Face LP is out on Top Dawg Entertainment and Interscope Records.
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